After serving as a product demo guinea pig on stage, I received a squirt gun filled with an unusual liquid that evaporates 25x faster than water. I spent much of the morning squirting curious people (e.g. Dean and Sergey).
For those bold enough to take it in a hot spot, such as the face, the spray would evaporate before they felt wet. Perhaps this is what it feels like to go through the dry cleaners.
Inventibles provided the novel materials for TED (gel magnets, hydrophobic sand, low temperature thermoplastic). This dry liquid is 3M Novec HFE (methoxy nonafluorobutane). It makes a good fire extinguisher because it does not leave water marks on paper, and it is electrically non-conductive, so computers can operate normally in a bath of the stuff.
This sneak photo is by “The Pancake Guy” (not to be confused with the equally fascinating “Pancake People”)
For the definitive history of most things, we turn to the Buck’s Restaurant Menu.
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